For those who love a challenge.

The Vegan 3 Challenge

The Challenge: Eat as a Vegan would for 3 Months

The Rules: Only foods that are not animal or animal by-products are allowed. Meat is not allowed. Dairy is not allowed. Gelatin is not allowed.

The Iffy Stuff: Nothing is iffy as far as I can tell. Meat is meat and dairy is dairy.

The Exceptions: None.

The Background: I am a born and raised farm girl who grew up having beef as a meal staple. We also had vegetables that taste like nothing you’ve ever bought in your super market, but we are first and foremost a classic example of your sturdy, meat-centric country family. Given this, most people from the community I grew up in couldn’t fathom a vegetarian or vegan lifestyle. Similarly, I couldn’t imagine anything harder. So naturally, that became a part of the Challenge Series.

The Journey: Throughout the challenge I introduced myself to a whole new way of eating. I had never dehydrated food before and now dehydrated mango is one of my favourites. It’s chewy and flavourful and reminds me of those 5 cent gummy candies… except that it’s healthy. I also tried making fruit strips, experimented with cheese-less pizzas, burgers made with quinoa, and chips made from zucchini. I learned that eating out can be difficult, but is nowhere near impossible; however, eating at a pub will generally mean you’re limited to less than healthy options – fries and onion rings. I did have to be more prepared (i.e. pack snacks for road trips) and pay a lot more attention to what I was eating. I also felt lighter and had lots of energy throughout the challenge. I did lose weight, but not an insane amount. Overall, it was a huge learning curve for me and really opened my eyes to a whole new realm of foods and how they can be used in different ways to make different meals.